Hillsong pastors say they warned Brian Houston about Carl Lentz's immoral behaviour, were ignored

Former Hillsong pastors Zhenya and Vera Kasevich allege that Hillsong founder Brian Houston was made aware of Carl Lentz’s immoral behavior, yet refused to address his actions due to the church’s culture of “secrecy.”

Months after Lentz, the former pastor of Hillsong NYC, was fired, a leaked audio call between Houston and the Hillsong leadership made its rounds online. In the audio clip, Houston said up until that point, he had never heard of any “moral” issues during Lentz’s tenure as pastor.

The new Discovery Plus docuseries, “Hillsong: A Megachurch Exposed,” however, tells a different story. The Kasevichs, who previously led a Hillsong church in Kyiv, Ukraine, claimed they warned Houston about some of Lentz’s immoral behavior from the start.

“The audio from Brian did not just pop up,” Vera Kasevich said in the documentary. “If you want people to know something, you find a way how to bring this narrative and how to groom people.”

In the leaked audio clip, Houston, who at the time was Hillsong’s global senior pastor, said, “I can honestly say, before God, the first time I ever heard any moral complaint against Carl was when Tolu contacted me.”

Lentz was fired from Hillsong after Tolu Badders, executive pastor at Hillsong East Coast, found text messages on the pastor’s computer between him and his mistress. In a statement sent to The Christian Post by Hillsong at the time, Houston revealed that Lentz’s termination was due to “leadership issues and breaches of trust, plus a recent revelation of moral failures.”